Resident Evil: Forgotten Dreams
by hacknslash
Summary: The destroyed world is a place of horror, where zombies walk without fear. Underground in the resistance, Leon Kennedy and his partner must retake the surface and send the virus back to oblivion.
1. The Foragers

_Some warnings in advance: contains profane language, adult situations, violence and drugs. A RE fanfiction._

**Resident Evil: Forgotten Dreams**

_Wow, it sure has been a while._

Leon stands next to me, a pistol at his side, holding a shotgun, identical to the one I'm holding, across his back. He's staring out at the vast plain of ash, gray skies above us. No sunlight shines down upon the wreckage of what had once been Las Vegas, Nevada. Nothing is left here, or really anywhere else on earth aside from rubble and ash.

"I tell you, foraging is one of the fuckin' stupidest jobs that we've ever been assigned to," he informs me, sifting his hand through several layers of dust. "Hell, there could be anything out there. And what's the point! Nothing's left, all the bastards either destroyed it or burned it all."

I don't reply, he's right. All that lays before us are bits of loose, charred timber. The dry air around us whips in a frenzy over the parched land.

"You know, this seems pretty damn dangerous, you're right," I reply, "we might need more ammo. Think we should get back to the entrance and tell Yevin - "

"No, Calvin," Leon cuts me off sharply, but with a slight smirk, "we don't want to spend more time on the surface than we need to. Lets just look for whatever we can find - which I know won't be much - and then get our asses back down there, okay?"

I nod.

Reality composed.

Leon starts forward, pushing pieces of charred metal aside. As he forges a path, I look up at the dark, polluted sky. The clouds move fast - once or twice I see a flash of lightning.

"Come on, Calvin!" says Leon. His voice is strained from the exertion of a large pipe he's lifting. I hurry over and help him move it aside. We dig further into the wreckage, but still find nothing but rats and rubble.

I shift a heavy two - by - four aside, and a dead human face is revealed. _Fuck._

"Leon, I got a corpse here!"

He jogs over and looks down at the pale face, crusted with blood.

"Son of a bitch!" Leon says, surprise in his voice. "That's Cecil, the forager from last week, remember?"

I do remember. My eyes are locked with Cecil's face.

"Whatever killed him might still be out here."

"Yes, and it can eat our fuckin' bullets. Probably just a minor scavenger that killed him. Cecil only had a pistol, and they're sneaky little shits, if you recall."

I tear my gaze away. "Come on, we gotta get his body outta there."

We begin to move all the piles of timber and beams off of Cecil's corpse, straining hard against the massive weight. It takes ten minutes to get his body out. Once he's laying down on the ashen earth beside us, we sit down, breathing deeply.

"You know, the council's really gotta fucking learn how to send foragers out here WITHOUT dying," I growl.

"I know," replies Leon. "This whole damn concept is screwed over. And with the other bastards wandering around here, I don't think they get the fact that we're living right under a Hot Zone."

"Yeah, thank god for the antidote - " I say, drawing out a small vile with green liquid in it. In that one second, a zombie dives out of the rubble around us and tackles me ferociously.

The attack is so fast that Leon doesn't go for the shotgun right away. I fall into a pile of ash, my hands up, the only thing warding the fucker off from biting me and sending the virus into my system. The gaunt, bloody corpse flails around, nails clicking inches from my face.

I draw a fist back and punch the zombie off me. On contact, my fist is bitten by the zombie, but I don't notice, my adrenaline is supercharged.

The zombie leaps on top of Leon and bites him in the shoulder. Leon screams in pain.

The zombie screeches in victory.

I drop the vile and seize my shotgun. _Boom._

The zombie explodes in a flash of bloody meat. It flies off of Leon, who is shaking in pain. I grab the vile and load a syringe, my hands trembling.

"It's too late, Calvin," gasps Leon tremulously.

"The hell it is," I answer. I crawl forward, stab the needle into Leon's neck and shoot him full of the antidote. Then I quickly load a different syringe and shoot some into my arm because of my bitten fist.

Leon's shaking abruptly stops, and he relaxes, his breathing evens out. I take time to wrap a bandage around his bleeding shoulder and my fist.

"Fuck, that was close," I whisper to him. Leon nods wordlessly. I get the feeling he's afraid to speak. "Talk, it'll make you feel better."

Leon brushes his hair out of his eyes, and says carefully, "we gotta retake the surface."

I shoot him a look. "Do you realize how hard that will be? It's not just the US, it's the entire earth that's been taken."

"Exactly," he says in response. "Umbrealla has survived far too long."

"Any time is too long. Ten fuckin' years is just bullshit, you're right. But what can _we_ do? We've gotta put our faith in the council."

"Face it, Calvin, they're a crackerjack group of fuckers," he seethes. "They don't know sh-t about the virus, the outbreak, Umbrella, NOTHING! _We_ do."

I sigh, sitting back with a twinge in my bloody hand. He's right, but there's nothing I could think of doing.

"Umbrealla is too damn big," I say resignedly. "We gotta bide our time, wait for the right moment to make our move. Let the group of fuckers handle it, and we'll step in when it's time. Can you wait for that time, Leon?"

He nods, but I can sense anger toward both Umbrella and the council boiling inside of him with the nod.

"They're on our side, Leon. We can't fight with each other, we need a common enemy - or Umbrella may have already won."


	2. A Plan of Action

_Authors Note: Longer chapter than the first one. The usual warnings, contains profane language, violence and adult situations._

**Resident Evil: Forgotten Dreams**

I slide a hand along the rail of the metal walkway we're striding along. Below us, deeper into the rebellion's core, there are thousands of other walkways with thousands of people walking along them. As I watch them going about their business, I wonder what's going through their heads, if they have realized how fucked they are.

"Keyes is gonna kick our ass," says Leon beside me over the clanking of our footsteps. "He was expecting us to find a lot of shit."

"Well, we found the body of a fellow forager, he can't murder us completely," I reply, though I'm guessing Leon's right. Keyes was gonna be pissed.

And at that very moment, a door to our right, against the wall swings open, and out the Captain stalks, face red, twisted in rage.

"I can't believe you two!" he fumes, kicking the railing, making it rattle. Some people below us look up.

"Captain – " Leon starts to say, but Keyes cuts him off.

"I send two of my best men out to find infected material and what do I get! _NOTHING BUT A BODY!"_ Keyes screams in rage. "_GET THE FUCK INTO MY OFFICE RIGHT NOW!_"

A mother below us covers her kids ears and stalks away, her brow furrowed. Embarrassed, Leon and I shoot looks at each other, before following the enraged Captain into his office.

I shut the door behind us quietly, and turn to see Leon walking to the Captain's desk. Keyes is forcibly white knuckling the side of the desk, trying to keep his anger in.

"Captain, it wasn't our fault. Jesus Christ, we found Cecil's body. You've been wanting to find him for weeks!"

"Oh, you think I should be happy about this shit!" shouts Keyes. He swipes several papers off his desk, then collapses in his chair. "Vegas is totally fucked, like the rest of the world then, like we thought."

We sense him calming down, and sit down across the desk, facing him. We let him breath for a few seconds, before explaining what had happened.

"We don't know how many are still up there, but some might have seen us go down here through the entrance. If that's the case, we need to send some more guards up there with Yevin tonight just in case a few zombies come try to break in."

"I doubt they would try it, they're stupid these days," says Keyes resignedly. He rubs his hands together, clasps them over his desk and says "where do we go from here?"

Leon looks over at me with raised eyebrows and I sigh. He wants me to talk about taking back the surface. But I know and so does he that if that is brought up that the Captain will blow sky high again.

"We aren't exactly sure," I say, taking action. "There's no point in lingering here. We should try to go down to the Panama if we could arrange – "

"The resistance isn't stretched down that far, its only the north of the US. We'd have to travel on the surface," Keyes cuts in quickly. "Unless you want to die, I suggest we think of something else."

Leon grinds his teeth impatiently. He doesn't like being contradicted despite the Captains superior position to us. He grips the sides of his chair hard, restraining his impatience. "Well then what do you suggest we do?" he growls.

"Since it would be closer, we could try to go up to Canada and see what's going on up there. Hell, anywhere would be better than staying in the middle north. We already know what's going on here – "

"With all due respect, Captain, things are most likely the same up there. The virus first spread from north to south, so its likely that it was infected and destroyed long before here," I say, cutting him off too. But I feel that I should stay respectful, since he's one of the second in command for the entire resistance.

"Well if you really expect to get to the Panama, then you'll have to travel underground all the way down to Texas in rollercar, then trek it all the way down through Middle America. Are you willing to do that?" asks Keyes.

I glance over to Leon. He looks at me. We stare at each other for a second, contemplating what it means to go down south. Then we both wordlessly turn back to the Captain.

"Yes," Leon says simply.

"Then get ready, you can go in an hour. I'll get a car ready."

Twenty minutes later, Leon and I arrive at our temporary room, situated about a football field down from Keyes's office. As I push the steel door open, Leon lays a hand on my shoulder, and says "are we ready for this?"

I look over at him, past his curtain of brown hair, and say with all honesty, "I don't know. But what the hell, we aren't doin' shit around here, we might as well try to make contact with anyone still alive. Haven't you ever thought about the possibility of the virus never crossing over to South America?"

"Well, yeah, but its pretty fuckin' likely that they're screwed down there, too. Why would the virus not get down there?"

"Dunno. But like I said, we aren't doin' shit around here, so lets try something new to help out the resistance. We may get flayed, but then again we may just get lucky, too."

Leon snorts. "Luck. Fuck luck. We haven't been lucky for ten years. If I had just blown up the mansion … "

"Leon, don't go down that road again. It wasn't your fault. You had good reason to leave it up. Don't forget that you were the one who incinerated half the fuckers in that place."

"Yes, but the place itself had the virus smeared all over it. I should have realized that this would happen!" snaps Leon, slamming a fist into the metal wall beside our door.

"Don't beat yourself up about it. If you really were to blame, then I would be with you 100 on it. But you aren't. It couldn't be helped. Lets just pack our things and forget about the past. Look forward, not backward."

I give him a light slap on the face. He smirks, and gives me one too.

"Come on, lets get ready."


	3. Hook Line and Sinker

**Resident Evil: Forgotten Dreams**

Chapter three

The roller car sits on the track in front of Leon and I. We got two bags across our backs, two pistols at our waists, a shotgun across our backs, and a sawed off shotgun in the bag with all our food, and ten syringes loaded with the antidote. With those syringes there are also three large bottles with the antidote in it in case we need more. All of the ammo is slung across both of our chests, almost completely covering the traditional S.T.A.R.S body armor that could somewhat stop the claws of the vicious undead.

Captain Keyes stands next to the track, tossing extra provisions in for us. The operator of the car is sitting in the front seat, waiting patiently to take off down the tracks. Roller cars are simple machines, like old mine carts with engines. Keyes gestures for us to get in, and Leon and I leap into the first cart. I grab the steering wheel, preparing for the operator to pull the switch and send us shooting south.

Keyes walks over to us, and says "this may be our only idea right now, but it doesn't make it any less dangerous. You two kick zombie ass, you're my two best fighters, and good friends. I don't want you guys to get killed down there. So I want to make this perfectly clear to both of you … _don't take unnecessary risks. _Do what you need to do, but for the love of god be careful."

"Don't worry about us, Captain," says Leon, but I know that he's worried too. "Whatever even comes near us down there … we'll fuck 'em up."

I turn away, trying not to smile. Leon always seems like a pessimist to me, but here in front of Keyes, he's acting optimistic to keep him from worrying. Nice job, Kennedy.

Keyes shakes both of our hands, says one final "stay the fuck outta trouble," then watches us yank the throttle and fire up the engine. I turn to Keyes, give him a quick wave, and slam my foot down. The roller takes off down the track at nearly one hundred and twenty miles per hour. The metal piping flies by us, flashing in a dizzying blur. All the ductwork around us with people walking around are impossible to make out.

The cover to the cart emerges out of the back of the cart and lowers over us from the touch of a green button on the side of Leon's door. The rushing wind is cut off when the cover seals above us. Encased in darkness, I hear Leon say quietly "we're totally fucked, aren't we."

"Well, yea," I reply. "Are you kidding?"

Silence prevails for two more minutes, before Leon says "do you think that we brought enough guns and ammo? When we get up to the surface in Texas, we're probably gonna need a lot of shots."

"No shit. Leon, there's no point in worrying about our provisions. We're on our way, we cant turn this bitch around. All we can do is make the best of what we're doin'."

That shuts him up. I don't really mean to sound mean, but I'm not feeling really my nicest at the moment, and going south where nobody in the resistance has gone before is making me just a little fucking nervous.

It takes us two days in rollercar to reach our final stop. Periodically throughout the trip we've stopped the car and gotten out to stretch and take a bite to eat, but other than that we kept our fast pace down south underground. As we progressed further, we see less and less people from the resistance walking around above and below us, and fewer and fewer rollercars around us going elsewhere. Eventually, near the end of the second day, the tide of people eventually just stops.

The reason we couldn't go any further is the track just stops at a certain point. When the car is finally at a stand still, Leon scrambles to get out. I'm right behind him. Once we're out of the car, we reach back in and yank out our packs and guns. We strap everything on and look at each other, covered in sweat from being cramped in such a small space. We both chuckle at the same time.

I turn to look further down from where the track should have kept going, and see just a solid metal wall, and a staircase to the right, leading up to the surface.

"So we're in Texas?" Leon says uncertainly. I nod, and pull my shotgun off my back. Seeing this, Leon does the same. I hurry over to the stairs and start the long journey upward. Forty landings of stairs.

Long fucking way.

It takes ten minutes of running up the stairs with loud clanking as we made our way to get to the top. As is the case with all of the entrances to the surface, there's a large metal ring in the ceiling. On the surface it blends in with the ground so the zombies can't find it. Usually there's someone guarding the entrances, but nobody stands under the ring. It's just us.

I turn to Leon. "Are you ready for this? It's heavy shit." Leon just gives me a look that says "what the hell do you think?"

I reach up toward the ring and punch it hard. It slides upward, and unlatches with a click. I push it to the side, and we climb up out onto the surface of Texas …

Into a deserted ghost town.

We're in the middle of a dusty town. The sun is actually shining, but dimly. The buildings around us are creaking eerily, but no movement is visible. Everything looks trashed, but the buildings are still standing. We're in the middle of what looks to be the main street. I roll onto the street fully, and get to my knees, aiming my shotgun around, looking for any sign of zombies, my ears trained for the telltale hissing of the undead.

As soon as it's clarified that nothing is moving, I look up in amazement at the dim, but shining sun high above us. For some reason, as soon as my eyes make contact with the shining white ball of inferno, I cant stop staring. My eyes are glazed over, until Leon gently shakes me.

"Amazing, isn't it?" he remarks, looking up at the sun also. We hadn't seen the sun in ten years, and now that we can, it's a bit overwhelming for both of us. "Such a beautiful thing, if not for the clouds."

Clouds. _Umbrella and the fuckin' zombies._

My mind snaps back to reality sharply, and I say "get out your compass and tell me where the hell we're supposed to be walking."

Leon digs in his back pocket and yanks out a small pocket compass that Keyes had given him two years ago.

"Well, that way is north," he says, pointing a finger in the direction we're facing. "So unless you're a complete jackass, you know where we have to walk."

I whack him across the head, and he just grins. We both turn to the south, and begin walking.

The large main dusty road seems to be the dividing line of both halves of the town, so when we walk off the road and between the first set of torn down buildings, we come out on a smaller side street. We continue across that street, eyes trained on the surrounding buildings, shotguns up. The walls are blood splattered, as was expected, but we saw no sign of infected undead. This is starting to bug me.

"They must have passed through here, so why aren't we seeing any?" I snap impatiently. My finger is tensed up, ready to pull the trigger. The sky is still dim with sunshine. No sense of security whatsoever.

We continue on to the next street, and its just as empty as the first two, except for one small detail.

An old blue ford mustang is sitting in the wreckage of what must have been a garage of some sort. The shards of metal plywood are strewn about in the rubble, all charred and dusty from age. I point out the car to Leon, but see that he's already looking at it. We nod to each other, and slowly approach the car.

The windows are cracked, and there are bloody handprints on the windshield, but it seems intact. We reach the car with our shotguns still up. I creep over to the passenger window, lowering my shotgun with relief.

But that was one big fuckin' mistake.

Inside the ford, on the floor, is a regular scavenger zombie. He looks to have once been human, but now is transformed by Umbrella's twisted virus into a mindless flesh – eating beast. Its once long black hair is matted down with congealed blood, strips of it hanging down into its mouth, filled with rows of sharp, blood stained teeth. Its eyes are bright red, with four dots in the center, as was the trademark with all zombies infected by the virus. Its skin is pale and translucent, with blood stains caking it. The zombie hasn't seen me yet, but before I can get my shotgun up or say something to Leon, I see that the zombie is crouched over a dead victim who hasn't yet risen up from the virus.

What stuns me about what's happening, is that the dead victims stomach is completely torn open, and the zombie is tearing chunks of his innards out with its sharp teeth. The gruesome sight makes me wretch violently, and the zombie looks up, a piece of intestine hanging from its mouth. It snarls, and roars, leaping at me. Luckily, the door is still shut, and the zombie smashes against the window, cracking it more, but sending it sprawling on its back, dazed. A splatter of blood from where the zombies skull made contact with the glass is left on the window … the small barrier that just saved my life.

"Leon!" I yell. He already sees the zombie, and without wasting another second, kicks the drivers seat open, and fires a round into the zombies head. Its head explodes in a flash of scarlet, brains splattering up against the ceiling and windows.

More cries echo in the distance. "Oh, fuck," Leon says, his voice shaky in fear.

"Come on! Shoot the victim and throw 'em both out, we gotta drive outta here!" I urge, throwing the passenger seat open with a snap. I drag the destroyed zombie out of the car, and throw it onto the dusty road beside me. Leon opens the drivers seat and reaches down to pull the dead man out of the car, but instead is greeted with a growl. He looks up and sees the mans eyes are now glowing red with the four dots in the center. Blood pours from his mouth.

"I got him," I say, and fire a round into the zombies head. More blood and brains fly everywhere, and this time hit us, too. _Damn, this is gonna be one messy car._

Leon yanks the corpse out onto the street, gets in, and slams the cracked door shut. I hurry in after him, into the passenger seat, not even caring as I sit right in a pool of blood. I shut my door, just as I see a crowd of zombies running full tilt down the dusty road from the west toward our car.

Leon seizes the keys in the ignition and twists them desperately. The car bucks and stalls, refusing to start up. I grow angry, and try turning it with Leon. We both put our hands over the key and twist as hard as we can. The key nearly breaks, but the car finally starts up before it snaps off. I chuck the top half of the key into the back seat, and say "drive us the hell outta here!"

Leon yanks the clutch, and presses down on the gas. The car shoots backward, clearing the plywood off of it with smashes as it hits the road. I look out my bloody window, and see that the zombies are less than fifty yards away.

"Leon, I don't mean to rush you, but we're fucked if we don't get out of here **NOW**."

Leon pulls the clutch back, and floors it.

The car shoots off between the two buildings in front of us, and we quickly leave the zombies behind. As we drive extremely fast down the alley toward the edge of the town, I sigh in relief, glad that we hadn't been caught.

Right before we leave the alley and hit the dirt road stretching down toward Mexico, ten more zombies leap out in front of us, seemingly out of nowhere, and punch through the windshield, raining glass shards down on Leon and me. I cry out in shock, and fire my shotgun through the windshield. Four of the beasts fly off in flurries of bloodmist and are quickly run over by the car. The other six try to climb through the windshield, but are stopped when Leon fires his own shotgun into their stomachs. They meet the same fate as the others.

As we run over the zombies, the car rocks back and forth over the wet chunks. I wince, realizing that, despite the fact that they were trying to kill us, they had once been innocent citizens of the U.S. I try not to think about it, as we shoot out of the alley and onto the dirt road. I try to think of something easier to grasp – like how long this road would stretch.


End file.
